Reviewed on Friday October 10
After recently scoring with one of the singles of the year (‘Avant Gardener’) and in a week that she won two Independent Music Awards, Courtney Barnettcould easily have been a live letdown. She wasn’t.
Beforehand, D.D Dumbo’s Afrobeat-inspired loop-pop made me wonder if singing over made-onstage loops was any less ‘live’ than doing so over a pre-recorded backing track. Unfortunately, Oliver Hugh Perry’s craft – for which he must layer guitar riffs, snare and bass drums (and even pan pipes and a recorder at one point) – quickly becomes tedious. Also, when your sound man tells you there’s 15 minutes of your set left, muttering “Fuck” and worrying about how you can fill the time is not really encouraging for a crowd. His guitar work sometimes demanded attention but Perry could learn a thing or two about stage presence.
But maybe it’s not something one can learn. Courtney Barnett didn’t seem to make an effort at all. Not with her choice of outfit, a baggy t-shirt, nor in bantering with the crowd. But she had no need to. She let her music do the talking and revelled in playing it.
You could do worse than liken Barnett to a female, Aussie Alex Turner. Although she crams in the syllables, she languidly spins ordinary tales and delivers wry witticisms, half sung, half spoken. On ‘Avant Gardener’: “I’m breathing but I’m wheezing / Feel like I’m emphysem-in’ / My throat feels like a funnel filled with Weet-Bix and kerosene”.
Thanks to a super-tight band, including guest guitarist Dan Luscombe of The Drones, the songs were given a heavier treatment than that present on double EP A Sea Of Split Peas. Glam-rock weight was given to opener ‘David’; the bluesy metal of ‘Canned Tomatoes (Whole)’ would’ve made Jack White sit up. Occasionally, country flourishes illuminated lines like on ‘Don’t Apply Compression Gently’ – “I take pieces of myself from everyone around me / I’m not individual enough for you” – giving tantalising image to Kirsty MacColl fronting the Stones.
Barnett is certainly a star in the making, albeit presumably a reluctant one.
